IOEE members can now practise pitching their business to an investor, minus the sweaty palms. The new Virtual Elevator Pitch puts you in a lift with an AI investor and gives you ten floors to win them over.
You start by writing your opening pitch, up to 400 characters. That’s roughly thirty seconds spoken, so there’s no room for waffle. The page suggests opening with your value proposition and gives you a fill-in-the-blanks version if you’re not sure where to begin.
Press Send and the doors close. The investor hears your pitch, tells you roughly how long it would take to say out loud, and starts asking questions: who your customers are, whether anyone has actually paid you yet, what it costs to deliver, and how much you’re asking for. As the floors tick by, the questions get more pointed.
On floor ten the doors open and you get the verdict, either “I’ll invest” or “No thanks, I’m out”. Alongside it you’ll see the reasons, the best thing you said, and the one thing to fix before you try again. Then you can step straight back in for another go.
We’ve tested it with some fairly unusual ideas. The investors stayed polite throughout, and still said no to anything without evidence that someone would pay for it.
The investor is an AI and this is practice, so nothing it says is investment advice. It is a good way to find the holes in your pitch before you’re standing in front of someone with real money.
The Virtual Elevator Pitch is available now to all IOEE members on Campus at https://campus.ioee.org.uk/elevator-pitch